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Behind the Scenes in Conservation: Making a List and Checking It Twice

by Conservation

12/15/2016

behind the scenes , conservation , textiles , CAM , textile list , organization

textile list

 

Making a list and checking it twice is a job at the North Pole and at the art museum!  But this list is all “nice.”  The museum has a large collection of objects that aren’t currently on display, including over 500 textile works that are stored rolled on archival-quality tubes.  Over the years, as the collection has grown and changed, their storage area has become overcrowded in some areas and very spacious in others, while objects that were similar were no longer stored near one another.  Our textile conservator and the curatorial assistant for Fashion and Textile Arts made this massive list of all the rolled textiles in storage.  The list has all the information they need to reorganize the entire collection!  It is color-coded by groups of objects that should be stored together and also lists each object’s “name,” accession number, current location, length, roll diameter, and geographic region of origin.  It will be used to reorganize the entire rolled textile collection, making better use of the available space while reuniting objects that should be stored near one another.  In the future, it will serve as a valuable guide to the organizational scheme used for the rolled textile collection.